The prior art includes software modules for PDA-type mobile terminals, making it possible to carry out the detection of Wifi terminals. Such a device is described on the Web at the address http://pocketwarrior.sourceforge.net. However, there is no device for a PDA capable of precisely characterizing the client's connection and that is capable, for example, of dynamically intercepting and analyzing radio traffic in order to identify the various protocols implemented.
Such devices for intercepting and analyzing traffic associated with an interface making it possible to characterize network connections are however known in the field of the PC. Such software modules exist in practically all operating systems for PC. For example, the information delivered by the Windows XP operating system for an established client/server connection is as follows: the duration of the connection upon establishment thereof, the maximum possible speed of the connection, the number of data packets received and sent, the IP address, the subnet mask and default gateway, etc.
In general, the information characterizing a network connection, which is made available by the operating systems, essentially concerns the exchanged volumes and the duration of the connection. These utilities are not, however, present on PDA-type mobile terminals, primarily due to the fact that the on-board operating systems are made significantly lighter.
In addition, when one wants to obtain more precise information on the characteristics of the connection, which is capable, for example, of providing an identification of the various protocols implemented, it leads to complex client solutions and consumes significant amounts of computation and memory resources, and is therefore even less suitable in a lighter environment such as that offered by PDA-type mobile terminals or smart telephones. These solutions have in fact been developed for network administrators or engineers wanting to conduct load tests or traffic analysis and cannot be transposed to the on-board world. For example, it is possible to cite a tool such as Ethereal (http://www.ethereal.com), which is a protocol analyzer of the type mentioned above.